Automobile rear lamps are attached to sheet metal panels behind the automobile's body panels. These sheet metal panels form a cavity into which the lamp assembly is seated. The sheet metal panels are attached to the automobile body in a precise position, so that the rear lamps positioned within the cavity are flush with the body panels. Occasionally, the automobile manufacturing process places the sheet metal panels slightly out of the ideal position. The improperly placed sheet metal panels do not allow the flush positioning of the rear lamps with respect to the body panels. Instead, the rear lamps either extend too far out of the cavity, or too far into the cavity. Of course, a wide spectrum of improper positioning is possible, from slightly out of alignment with the body panels, to widely out of alignment. In either event, the rear lamps are not flush with the automobile's external body panels. Alternately, large manufacturing tolerances in the rear lamps can create the same condition of improper positioning, or a combination of the two could create improper positioning of the rear lamps with respect to the body panels. In any event, a misalignment of the rear lamps and the body panels creates the appearance of an improperly manufactured automobile, and is thus undesirable both to the automobile manufacturer and to the automobile consumer. The defective sheet metal panels may be bent into the proper alignment, or some other corrective action may be taken, but corrective action invites damage to the automobile, and is time consuming to implement. In some cases, the manufacturing defect may not be repairable by bending the sheet metal panels, requiring replacement of the sheet metal.
A desirable feature of a rear lamp, given the above difficulties in their positioning, would be to add a mechanism to adjust the rear lamp inside of the cavity. Such a mechanism would allow for variations in manufacturing, and allow the automobile manufacturer to quickly and precisely adjust the rear lamp inside the cavity to align with the body panels.